Bank of America reports some good news:

http://www.bofa.com/batoday/y2k_on-track.html

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), February 19, 1999

Answers

B of A

-- ronbanks (phxbanks@webtv.net), February 19, 1999.

We need MUCH MORE good news from other institutions to be satisfied. Meanwhile, I'm monitoring my cash flow...

-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), February 19, 1999.

Tis good news. BoA was reputed to be one of the banks that would complete first. That is, I've heard that it was the major bank that was nearest to completion of internal stuff.

I expect that we will begin to hear of quite a few banks that have completed internal remediation. Hope enough finish. If the good ones are going to gobble up the ones that don't make it there have to be survivors. Looks like BoA is a survivor.

-- De (dealton@concentric.net), February 19, 1999.

Thanks Flint.

Every little bit helps. At least they are starting to inform their customers of "some" status.

What about outside verification?

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), February 19, 1999.

FYI, for a list of more banks that are complete, check out de Jager's links:

Promises Kept

AG

-- (AG@BFI.com), February 19, 1999.

Here's another recent article on banks. The link is already dead, so I took this from another thread where I'd already posted it.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/990210/fl_weiss_r_1.html

[begin article]

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. -- (BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 10, 1999--Among banks and S&Ls responding to a Weiss Y2K readiness survey mailed Dec. 30, 1998, a suprisingly large percentage -- 32% -- admit that they missed a critical Y2K deadline.

These institutions report that they did not complete remediation and testing of internal mission-critical systems by Dec. 31, 1998. Furthermore, 20% do not anticipate completion until March. This implies a failure to comply with the federal requirement that "testing of internal mission-critical systems should be substantially complete" by Dec. 31, 1998. (a)

This finding directly contradicts recent assurances from banking regulators that only 4% of banking institutions have been rated "unsatisfactory" or "needs improvement."

"I don't understand how the authorities can give 'satisfactory' Y2K compliance ratings to institutions that have apparently missed a critical compliance deadline," commented Martin Weiss, PhD., chairman of Weiss Ratings, Inc. "I personally believe the authorities are either using outdated information in their pronouncements or simply sugar-coating the truth. In the long run, I feel this can only damage their credibility and create the conditions for the very consumer panic everyone wants to avoid."

To date, 909 banks and S&Ls have responded to the Weiss survey. Among these, only 620 (68%) stated that they had completed the required Y2K fixes on all internal mission-critical systems by Dec. 31, while 289 (32%) reported that they had missed the deadline. Among these, 184 institutions (20% of the respondents) stated that they did not anticipate completing the fixes until after Feb. 28.

Final results of the Weiss survey with additional analysis will be released in early March.

"Furthermore," Weiss adds, "we must assume that, on average, institutions that did not respond to our survey are more likely to be late in fixing their Y2K problems than those that that did."

[snip]

Weiss Ratings Inc. issues financial safety grades on over 16,000 banks, S&Ls, insurers, HMOs, Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans, and security brokerage firms.

(a) The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), which coordinates various banking regulators, including the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of Comptroller of the Currency, clarified this requirement in an Aug. 28, 1998 email to bank CEOs, entitled "Year 2000 Questions And Answers," stating: "The FDIC expects each financial insitution to meet the following key milestones in the Year 2000 testing process by the date indicated: ...Dec. 31, 1998 -- testing of internal mission- critical systems should be substantially complete."

[end of article]

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), February 20, 1999.

I hope that there are LOTS of companies that are finished and not on the Promises Kept list! Wasn't Dec. 31, 1998 supposed to be a big date for completion? I only count 30 companies on that list, a month and a half after so many companies *said* they would be done. To me this is reason to predict worse problems, rather than fewer, as DeJ is said to be doing.

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), February 20, 1999.

Mutual Life a large canadian investment and insurance firm declare they are fully y2k compliant (not y2k ready)

For Mutual, "Year 2000 compliance" means that we have implemented the required changes, policies and procedures for our systems to ensure they meet the Year 2000 challenge -- systems that rely on dates will operate consistently before, during and after the Year 2000 arrives.

This is good news and fact.Go to www.themutualgroup.com

-- Jim P.E. (outstrip@hotmail.com), February 20, 1999.

Thanks Flint, I have just two questions, are they running on the remediated code live time? What form of remediation did they use? If windowing then windowing = problems;

#include case problems: -Got Faith break;

a little C humor Tman

-- Tman (Tman@IBAgeek.com), February 20, 1999.

I've seen this "windowing = problems" idea a few times here.

Other than it being a temporary solution, just what "problems" do you see with it?

AG

-- (AG@BFI.com), February 20, 1999.

Tmam, to answser your questions, the link says this:

"Renovated existing computer program code, employing techniques such as field expansion, century byte, and windowing, to fix Y2K related problems within mission critical and other necessary applications "

And it also says this:

"Installed the tested application software into production, as necessary, to verify that the application processes correctly in the current bank operating environment "

They also say they have set up a time machine and run their code through it to test a number of potential problem dates, and that they are validating their code on an ongoing bases (apparently to make sure no date bugs are introduced during ordinary maintenance).

Interestingly, Andy read this and posted (to y2k) that they did NOT explicitly mention any interface testing with other organizations. Andy implied that this omission invalidated the entire announcement!

At the risk of sounding naive, I know that bad data represent an ongoing problem everywhere, and there are always multiple levels of validation in place (as well as standard techniques for correction). y2k represents two potential problems with respect to incoming bad data: whether these data will be in a new form for which current validation doesn't work, and whether the incidence of such bad data will exceed the ability to handle it. So far, nobody has been able to describe, even hypothetically, any new form of bad data for which current procedures won't work. The Euro experience gives some indication that even high error rates can be dealt with quickly by hammering out protocols with the serious offenders.

Also, as this announcement implies, windowing is sometimes perfectly appropriate. B of A says here that it is used where it is appropriate, and expansion is used where necessary.

I vaguely recall that BofA had about 200 million lines of code. Maybe someone has an old reference -- this was over a year ago.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), February 20, 1999.

The BoA news IS good. And, it's nice to know that a bank was able to finish its Y2K work close the December 31, 1998 deadline.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), February 20, 1999.

..."close to the December 31, 1998 deadline" is what I meant to say.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), February 20, 1999.